This invention relates generally to apparatus for dispensing flavored, flow-able frozen foods to a customer for soft-serve ice cream, ice milk, ices, smoothies, slushes, shakes or the like.
My U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,520 issued Dec. 27, 1988 and certain patents cited therein, disclose various approaches to mixing several different flavoring liquids to a base mix of ice cream. U.S. Pat. No. 3,001,770 issued to Mueller on Sep. 26, 1961 shows a machine for mixing different flavoring liquids with ice cream and has a device for injecting nuts into the mixture. To the best of my knowledge, there is no apparatus available which can be connected to a conventional freezer machine for soft-serve ice cream or some other semi-frozen edible product, and which is useful to select and blend one or more different ingredients into the food product of the freezer machine for dispensing into a cone or cup to a customer immediately upon demand. The present invention is addressed to this need.